Customer Reviews

Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Where was this book when I started my career. Ralph Keyes & Richard Farson have created a path that needs to be followed. I remember begging for forgiveness on a regular basis waiting for the hatchet to fall. The insight and clairity of this book is inspiring. If you find yourself standing on the "razors edge" and you need that little push, pick up this book and devour it. You will ask yourself why you didn't jump years ago. A true "must read" for all managers and executives who want to survive in todays economy. You are your own worst enemy if you walk the path that is worn thin, find the alternative paths that makes you heart pound with energy and you will find excitement and true fulfillment. Ralph and Richard have given us that push.

This is a great book and a quick read. Be ready to do some deep thinking though. This book will make you consider the metal modals that you use to measure success and failure.

In the light of the dot com meltdown this book seems very timely. Companies with no operating history or sustainable operating model were called success and become the companies to emulate. Most of the dot coms are gone now and WorldCom and Enron are known to be what they are it seems very timely to look at success and failure.

Reading this book also makes you look at your life in a different way when reviewing past events. As you review your personal history you may find that what you thought to be a big failure was in fact the thing that led to recent success.

One of the key take a ways of this book for me was that was those I consider successful often view not trying as the opposite of success rather then failure. For these folks the failures are the mile markers on the way to success.

This is a great book because it makes you look hard at success and failure and consider what they mean in you life. Highly recommended.

I was first drawn to this book when I was writing a college research paper on the topic of "Success". This book is extremely intersting in that it documents exellent, real-world examples of how failure leads to success (as well as the paradox, how too much success can/will lead to failure).

I found this book to be a quick and easy read that caused me to question our societal norms and values in the subjects of success and failure.

On another note, I think that this book can be particularly useful to people who are perfectionists or who are stressed out about their need to succeed in whatever they are doing. This book helps to demonstrate that succeeding in everything is not always the route to being "successful" in the long run, and that playing it safe can end up costing you later on.

Thus, if you have any interest in the subjects of success/failure, economics, business, psycology or really any other topic...I would recommend this book. Definately glad I read it. Helped me to "succeed" in my paper about success.

I had mixed feelings about this book as I read it. On the one hand, its message that failure is not an endgame is sorely needed in our current business climate. The mentality over the past few years of winning at any cost has led us to the corporate debacles involving Enron, WorldCom, etc. We also have a generation of young people who are experiencing a business downturn for the first time, and need all the help they can get in dealing with lost jobs, failed business ventures and other consequences.

The book's message is simple and direct: failure is not only an option, it is a part of life. It's how we learn, a tool for making ourselves better at what we do. The book itself spares us the typical executive what-made-me-a-success chest thumping and exhortations to "think outside the box" (which is rarely outside the box anyhow). Instead, it sticks to common sense, and is brief enough to be read in one or two sittings.

But as I read this book, I wondered how relevant it really is to many people out there. Are failures and mistakes all *that* tolerated? In businesses that are looking for excuses to fire people, mistakes are seen not as learning experience but as opportunities to reduce payroll. In that sense, placing the message of this book into the reality of today's workplace can be quite difficult. Learning that Thomas Edison failed more than he succeeded is interesting, but cold comfort to someone struggling to pay the mortgage.

For managers who aren't afraid to act on its message, this book can be an excellent morale-builder for staff. But for risk-adverse organizations, it might seem hypocritical to the point of absurdity. It may also wake the reader up to his or her position in life... either confirming that they're on the right track or promoting a life-altering change.

Success and failure are two sides of the same coin. That for me sums up the essence of this book. Failing is succeeding and suceeding leads to failure. Farson articulates the essential paradox of success and its elusive quality explaining why it so often escapes us when we grab for it. Farson also provides an excellent treatment of risk and fear which go hand and with success and failure. In short, he makes the case for being fully engaged in the moment with less attachment to outcome.

No formulas or how-to lists here; it's a philisophical treatise and one of the most stimulating and best written business books I have read in a long time.

Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes are unique thinkers whose refreshing insights and reflections on how we live our lives - what we bring to our workplaces and relationships -are paradoxically simple and complex. On page 129 they caution about "learning how not to be shattered by the humiliation of failure or unnerved by the stress of success," a running theme. They see the two, failure and success, as two sides of the same coin. The primary focus of The Innovation Paradox is on business but the lessons transcend management and leadership in the workplace. For example, you will be fascinated to read on page 45 that "it's unlikely our friendship will survive a friend's triumph." This slim 129 page book is one that you will dog ear and come back to time and again. You will find yourself alternately scratching your head (huh?), nodding in knowing agreement (aha!), and getting angry (agghh); and having a lot of fun along the way. I highly recommend this book that delivers uncomfortable truths, knowing wisdom and uncommon common sense.

Making mistakes is a key part of succeeding at anything, the authors believe. Mistakes educate, and education leads to success. They tell the story of Thomas Watson's early loss of company resources at IBM, and his inital expectation that it would lead to his firing, so he offered to resign instead. "You must be kidding," he was told. "We've just invested $10 million in your education."

Those who play it safe can avoid making mistakes, but they do so at a cost of a lack of genuine achievement. To be genuinely supportive of risk-takers, a company must be tolerant of failures, the authors argue.

Just the education caused by failures often leads to success, so the hubris or overconfidence caused by success often leads to failures. Success and failure are not polar opposites, but rather merely separate parts of an integrated whole.

The important thing a person can do to focus on getting the job done in the best way possible, and not become paralyzed with fear as to whether his or her efforts will succeed or fail. Success and failure are beyond one's personal control, but the personal effort and focus and energy are not. The authors quote basketball great Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics as saying he was often so involved in the games he was playing that he didn't really care if he won or lost: the authors paradoxically argue that this is an attitude that is key to winning.

A lot of people who the world regards as successful do not see themselves that way, from Maria Shriver to J.P. Getty. A person who is successful in one area likely has failed in another. The key is to learn from one's mistakes, not repeat them, and stay in the game. Staying in the game is the great reward that motivates many successful people.

This is an extremely wise and humane book. It recognizes that any definition of success is limited in the number of people who can qualify as successful, and that the list of those who are successful at any one time is different from the list of those who are successful at any other time. It recognizes that a key steppingstone to success by any definition is the ability to learn and profit from failure.

This is an extremely useful book for people in the middle of corporate hierarchies. It is also valuable for those debating whether or not to take a given risk, and for those who have taken a risk that has failed. It is valuable for anyone who has to supervise others, or plan for the future, or try to make his or her organization more responsive to an ever-changing world.

Few books are more valuable than this one in coping with the ups and downs of business, or the ups and downs of life. Few people are so dazzingly brilliant or amazingly lucky that they go through life without being harmed by either success or failure. For all those aware of the danger points, this is a book that offers an exit strategy from them.

The following is my positive review of The Innovation Paradox, by Farson and Keyes. The book actually didn't become interesting until 40 pages in. I nearly gave up on it. Plotting through, giving the benefit of the doubt, paid off by revealing some cunning management insight concerning innovation. I also enjoyed their take on winning and success: that you can't achieve it by focusing on it. There is room for debate on the issue, but they defend their point well.

Let's have the meat! Littered throughout the book were small tokens of management insight. It makes me want to read their management book actually. Nevertheless, Farson and Keyes don't have a full grasp of innovation. According to them, all that's needed is a risk friendly, mistake absorbing management philosophy. They don't address the issues of upward and downward mobility. Without that understanding, taking the risk and enter a new market could seem foolish, and most likely be done in a way that would lead to disaster. A dry, but much more insightful read on the subject is The Innovator's Dilemma.

So what tokens of management insight could be had? Let me quote from page 88. The following text deals with allowing mistakes in hope of fostering innovation. Not the best way to learn, I know. They are criteria for determining if mistakes are excusable, or not.

* Did the employee design this project contentiously or was it carelessly organized?
* Could the failure have been prevented if necessary research or consultation had been accomplishes properly?
* Was the project conducted in a spirit of collaboration, or did the employee ignore the input from the others who could have helped , or fail to check with colleagues who should have been informed?
* Did the project fail because it was burdened by requirements that weren't germane to the actual goal, but served only to meet personal needs of the employee?
* We there clear instances of deception with respect to projections of risk, cost, time, and son, or were variations from projections the results of honest mistakes?
* Was the mistake in question committed repeatedly?

Another section of seldom expressed reading describes how early success ( high school ) doesn't dictate success later in life. In fact the opposite is sometimes true. Having difficulty at this age either defeats you, or sows a seed of determination. It's the early success stories, the Heisman trophy winners and such, that feel a sense of entitlement, and therefore simply try less. They pointed to a study of young people performing a task: The group that was complimented more didn't perform as well as the group that wasn't. The simple managerial deduction was to be genuinely interested in an employees laudable actions rather than throwing out complements.

It was neat to hear their take on public education. It's purpose is to reward the non-risk takers, and weed out the risky. That helps explain why C's were hard to come by for me, but running a business is a hoot.

This 100 page read was worth my time, easily.

Recently I had read three great books on mistakes:- "Will your next mistakes be fatal? by Robert Mittelstaedt", "Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes? by Sydney Finkelstein", and "In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters by Merrill R. Chapman". To prevent myself from being too risk aversive (just kidding!) I dig into Amazon to get an antidote. Now I am writing a review of it.

Beyond expectation, positively, this book is highly philosophical or even zen. For e.g., on pg 10, "To cope with this economy dont flee from its complexity,; embrace it. In the world to come, we will repeatedly face fluid, ambiguous, even paradoxical, situations....Grow your business by destroying your business; to get big, think small; increase your share of markets by ignoring the concept of market share. We would add: Manage success and failure by not making clear distinctions between the two." And on pg 13, "We assume that success is the pinnacle, failure the pits. They're not. The real pinnacle is when we are so engaged in what we're doing that this distinction vanishes. Athletes call it being in the zone.....when faced with extreme challenges they entered a state of elevated concentration - one he called flow - in which time seemed to stand still, one moment blended into the next, and doing the right thing became almost effortless."

Certainly, the two quoted passages above are not representative of the whole book which gives plenty of good case studies (in particular 3M) and strategic suggestions. However, that sets the overall tone, which distinguishes it from the tons of "mistake" genre of books in the market. IMHO, this is a very good and interesting read for business and personal enhancement. Highly recommended!

Below please find some of my favorite passages for your reference:-

I've missed more than nine thousand shots in my career," admitted Michael Jordan. "I've lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." pg 32

The world belongs to those who dont let anxiety about screwing up keep them from moving forward. Those who are too afraid to make a mistake work for those who arent. Even harder than making our own mistakes is letting others make theirs. pg 34

One reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union was that its state controlled economy grew obsessively intolerant of mistakes.....The essence of a free market economy is constant correction based on continual consumer feedback in response to errors. pg 38

When it came to warfare, the samurai strived to achieve victory by becoming fully absorbed in a process that would lead them there, not by setting their sights on victory itself...Samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi called this "total absorption of purpose in a single telling bow." pg 119

Success comes from being awake, aware, and in tune with others. - Phil Jackson, NBA Coach pg 122

As a professor of management I have searched for many years to find a book, that would be useful to my students and seminar participants, on how to innovate and be creative in organizations. Farson and Keyes have written a "handbook" on organizational innovation that instructs us not be afraid to take risks in our corporate lives and encourages us to do so to achieve effective outcomes.

The book is not only written for practicing managers. It is a welcome classroom supplement for professors of management, entreprenuership, and research and development who want to provide their students with real-world examples about risk-taking and innovation in organizations.